The peculiar case of David Hogg exposes media incompetence *UPDATED*

Is David Hogg, the post-Florida shooting media darling, the real deal or a Leftist plant? The New York Times provides no facts to help answer that question.

It was inevitable that, after the school shooting in Florida, Progressives would demand that Americans surrender their Second Amendment rights. Their campaign this time has a new twist. Rather than merely using frightened and grieving parents, Progressives in the media decided to turn the political attack into something John Hinderaker has aptly called a “children’s crusade.” This children’s crusade has included endless visuals of hysterical teenagers at the Florida Statehouse — which, to its credit, resisted the hysteria and refused to enter into gun grabbing mode. The students have also been engaging in interviews with drive-by media outlets and, with help from the hard-Left, antisemitic, anti-white Women’s March crew, organizing mass marches and school walkouts.

The Progressives, both the professionals in media and politics, and the useful idiots who routinely hew Left in social media, have bestowed upon these students the same “absolute moral authority” they granted grieving Mom and anti-war fanatic Cindy Sheehan — that is, they gave her that authority right until Obama was in the White House, at which time she ceased to be useful to them. They seem blind to the irony that they are imputing wisdom to the same people they claim are so helpless they must remain on their parents’ healthcare until they are 26. They are telling us we have to let the same people who eat Tide Pods dictate America’s constitutional policy. Of course, these are also the same people who insist that girls as young as 12 get the Pill and abortions without parental consent, but that tanning and ear-piercing must have a parent’s signature. We don’t look for logic with the Left.

Given the way the Left weaponized teenagers after the Florida shooting, it’s scarcely surprising to see that pro-Second Amendment Americans are striking back by taking a long, hard look at these same teenagers. The conservative side of my Facebook feed is a phenomenal resource for this push-back. One of the major forms of push-back bubbling up questions the bona fides of these students, especially the most prominent among them, a kid named David Hogg.

Please note that I do not vouch for the veracity of any of the material below. It could be true. It could be Photoshopped and I’d have no way of knowing. It could be pure tin foil conspiracy stuff. It could have a grain of truth wrapped in gauzy fantasy. I have no idea. I just want you to see what’s out there so that you will understand how dismally incompetent the New York Times was when it decided to challenge the theories set out below.

The kid who has been running his mouth about how Donald Trump and the GOP are teaming to help murder high school kids by upholding the Second Amendment is the son of an FBI agent.

David Hogg is a school shooting survivor in Florida. At least that is what the mainstream media has told us. We wouldn’t be surprised by anything involving the FBI at this point.

From Deep State CBS News:

“David Hogg was in school when the Parkland, Florida, shooting started. His father is a retired FBI agent, so he recognized immediately that this was a gun. Here’s what he did:”

And while the media allowed Hogg to adorn us with his worldly teen views on the Constitution, they conveniently left out the part where the FBI was warned that the Florida school shooter had promised to shoot up a school — at least twice — long before the massacre that killed 17 students last week.

If Hogg knew the shooter would snap — as he and other students have professed — perhaps he could have told his father about it.

First, we learn the mainstream media’s school shooting darling is the son of an FBI agent (retired). Then he goes on television ranting against President Trump when the deadly Florida school shooting last week — it turns out — was more the fault of the FBI than anyone even close to the White House.

Hogg ranted live on CNN and CBS and all other networks as his anti-Trump and anti-GOP gun control comments went viral in the mainstream media vacuum.

Liberal Nation applauded.

But now we learn Hogg was hanging out at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, GA sometime Before the school shooting. Before the shooting. Posing behind an news anchor desk? Perhaps Hogg’s career dream is to sign on with the network — a young Jake Tapper — as he has portrayed himself since the deadly shooting that claimed 17 students as a “student journalist and entrepreneur.”

One student, in particular, David Hogg has been astonishingly articulate and highly skilled at propagating a new anti-Conservative/anti-Trump narrative behind the recent school shooting. Few have seen this type of rapid media play before, and when they have it has come from well-trained political operatives and MSM commentators.

Immediately, these students-turned-activists threw up some red flags.

In what was initially as an incredibly odd move for a high school student, Hogg vehemently defended the FBI and placed the blame squarely on the President’s shoulders…. before admitting that his father was in the FBI.

[snip]

Continuing, Hogg demonstrated his complete lack of American civics knowledge. A clueless Hogg appeared unaware of the fact that the President is not ‘in control’ of each department and branch of government, but must work and negotiate with them. Regardless, Hogg pushed the notion that Trump is in charge of the FBI.

[snip]

Adding to the “credibility” of Hogg, in a recently uncovered early cut from one of his interviews it appears he was heavily coached on lines and is merely reciting a script. Frequently seen in the footage mouthing the lines he should be reciting. Hogg becomes flustered multiple times, is seen apologizing, and asking for re-takes.

Considering that Hogg deliberately and repeatedly thrust himself into the media limelight, it seems . . . ah, what’s the word? Hypocritical? Cynical? Cowardly? Manipulative? Something like that. It seems something like that to hide a video to might show Hogg’s motives or innocence to be less than pure. You can see the same footage here, though:

Having seen it, you can decide for yourself whether he’s an actor flubbing lines or just a stressed teenager. But wait; there’s more! Lots more about floating through the blogosphere about David Hogg.

Thomas Lifson offers some logical, non-conspiratorial explanations for Hogg seemingly being everywhere that shots are fired or cameras are filming. But as I said, my point in this post is not to comment on the truth or falsity of claims that the Hogg kid is a plant or that there are such things as crisis actors.

(Actually, we know perfectly well that there are such things as “crisis actors” because they are routinely used in the Middle East. We’ve seen the infamous Mohammed al Dura hoax exposed. We’ve seen giggling, wiggling “corpses.” It’s Pallywood when the Palestinians do it and crisis theater when anyone else in that region performs for the cameras. It’s therefore entirely possible that’s what is happening here. I’m just ecumenical about what’s being alleged here because I have insufficient data.)

What I want to write about, instead, is about the utterly contemptible work that passes for journalism in the mainstream media. If I were a reporter tackling the claims about Hogg and other American-based “crisis actors,” I would come back with facts: Regarding Hogg, I would report about where he was born, where he lived before and where he lives now, how he’s interested in journalism, what role his father played in the FBI and the job he holds now. You know, I’d do actual investigation and reporting.

What’s so utterly fascinating with the New York Times’ report on conservative concerns about Hogg’s bona fides is that all it does is repeat conservative talking points and then sneer at how stupid they are. Here’s a paragraph by paragraph breakdown, consisting of a few quotations from the article and my summary of the meat of each paragraph:

Paragraph 1: The Times tells us how brave the students are who are speaking out.

Paragraph 2: Faced with this bravery, conservatives have resorted to calumnies against these students.

Paragraph 3: These calumnies are “baseless”:

In these baseless accounts, which by Tuesday had spread rapidly on social media, the students are described as “crisis actors,” who travel to the sites of shootings to instigate fury against guns. Or they are called F.B.I. plants, defending the bureau for its failure to catch the shooter. They have been portrayed as puppets being coached and manipulated by the Democratic Party, gun control activists, the so-called antifa movement and the left-wing billionaire George Soros.

At this point, what I expect in the subsequent paragraphs was for the New York Times, not only to quote the accusations conservatives are making, but also to prove to me why the charges are “baseless.” Except that’s not what the New York Times did. Instead, it just kept saying how awful the mean conservatives are.

Paragraph 5: Hogg is the student news director at his high school. This, incidentally, is the only factual statement the article makes about Hogg. Hogg is also a big hit with “liberals” (i.e., Leftists) because he’s “polished and compelling” on TV. No wonder, then, that “right-wing provocateurs like The Gateway Pundit, a fringe website” hate him. (Dear New York Times writers, the grammatically correct phrase is “such as the Gateway Pundit,” not “like the Gateway Pundit.” Can’t write. Can’t think.)

Paragraph 6: The Gateway Pundit argues that Hogg has been coached. Moreover, to the extent Hogg is talking about his FBI agent father, that FBI mention melds with “a broader right-wing trope, that liberal forces in the F.B.I. are trying to undermine President Trump and his pro-Second Amendment supporters.” Yeah, it’s funny how conservatives somehow got the idea about the FBI undermining Trump. Maybe it had something to do with reading Strzok’s and Page’s texts about undermining Trump. Or maybe it had to do with learning that the FBI relied upon a salacious piece of paid-for campaign dirt, produced by a Brit in reliance on Russians, to spy on people close to Trump.

Paragraph 7: The Gateway Pundit isn’t the worst. Alex Jones is say that the shooting was an anti-gun false flag. (Let me say that, while I’m ecumenical about Hogg, I do not at all support Alex Jones’ regular “false flag” theories. It seems to me that the shooter’s craziness, coupled with Broward County School District policies that kept him from being arrested and therefore buying guns, along with FBI failings, added to the cultural decline over which the Left has presided, are sufficient unto the day to explain what happened.)

Paragraph 8: Jack Kingston, a former U.S. Representative from Georgia, asked on CNN whether it was believable that “17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a nationwide rally?” Thankfully, the New York Times hastened to assure its frightened readers, “He was quickly rebuked by the anchor Alyson Camerota.” She sure showed him.

Paragraph 9: The conspiracy theory is going from the fringes to the mainstream, thanks to Bill O’Reilly who commented on the fact that the national press was happy to use kids to destroy the Trump administration. Seeing as how that’s precisely what the media has been doing, including with the very “news” story I’m fisking, it takes a heroic lack of self-awareness to castigate O’Reilly for pointing out something you’re actually in the midst of doing.

Paragraph 10: People spreading the conspiracy are “facing consequences.”

Paragraph 11: Benjamin Kelly, an aid to Florida State Rep Shawn Harrison, sent an email to the Tampa Bay Times saying that Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, his classmate, were actors.

Paragraph 14: Undeterred by Kelly’s firing, the Gateway Pundit has gone on to highlight the fact that the Women’s March (which has links to Soros) is pushing certain kids to the fore. Worse, people are sharing that theory.

You now have an accurate, if slightly snarky, summary of the New York Times response to the conspiracy. Do you see anything in there proving Hoggs’ bona fides? I don’t.

Given that the Times does not assert any facts to support its accusation that the conspiracy theory is “baseless,” why should I believe it any more than I should believe those questioning Hoggs’ appearance? What the Times did was not journalism; it was just a snarky opinion piece masquerading as journalism.

If that’s the best the nation’s once-premier news outlet can do, journalism in America isn’t only dead. The corpse is rotting in the streets.

As for me, I’ll continue to wait for data about David Hogg. Actor? Activist? Student? Prop? Victim? Manipulator? Charmer? Sociopath? Time and facts will tell — but I won’t find any of those facts in the Times.

UPDATE: And at the Daily Caller, you can see what actual investigative reporting looks like. Instead of calling people names and sneering at them, the Daily Caller used its resources to track down the rumors and reveal the truth. This is what the New York Times could and should have done, but it didn’t bother. Instead, it just entered into a cozy little confab with its readers, confirming their prejudices without turning to facts — and that’s ironic, really, because in this case, their prejudices and the facts meshed well. Hogg is who he says he is.

Related

Bookworm came late to conservativism but embraced it with passion. She's been blogging since 2004 about anything that captures her fancy -- and that's usually politics. Her blog's motto is "Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts."